Mental Health And Nigeria’s Way -By Saifullahi Attahir Wurno

“The fastest way to pass your own expectations is to add passion to your labour” -Mike Littman.

Ado (original name concealed) is a young adult of 17 years, born in to a family you can describe as those in the bottom ladder, raised in a rural area among his siblings in an extended family. He was the first born to his two parents, followed by his other three junior brothers including a female of age 4. His father’s  main source of income is farming, and by farming, I meant a subsistence farmer who barely produced enough food for his family of seven for a whole year. Ado’s mother aged 35 received Islamic education for a brief period until she was married. She was not opportune to receive even a primary education, which may help her in some aspect of her day to day activities. early in to their marriage, apart from her compulsory home activities she learnt some form of small skills of selling mini
home commodities we popularly called ‘kayan miya‘ in Hausa all in an effort to compliment for her husband inadequate income to support the family.

Ado was born in to this house-hold, looking at the family background; it was not surprising when any
child born into this family was not fortunate to attend primary school unless he was lucky to have a very foresighted and determined parent or some distant relations where someone might lend a helping hand. Since in the first place Ado was born with a form of developmental deficiency not usually found with newborns referred medically to as congenital abnormality, where from early days he used to prolong his gaze at a thing, not normally responding to some gestures of happiness like laughing, he seldom cries, and later around communication stage for a normal child he developed a delayed speech till after two 2 years of age.

To cut the story short, Ado grows with some impaired mental illness in his family, which automatically denied him the access and privilege of intimate care, sense of belonging, and even an early taste of going to school among his siblings. This condition caused him a constant bullying and teasing among his peers unrestricted by their parents. This condition caused Ado to loss his sense of self esteem, sense of responsibility and feeling of equality among other children. He was easily labeled as a “mad” (Mai tabin hankali) in Hausa. His parent tried to find solution to Ado’s problem through only traditional and herbal way, they never consulted any hospital for the condition, and finally they gave up. By the age
of 11 years Ado was handled to a distant person for Qur’anic school we popularly called ‘Almajiranci’ In an effort that only his father could explained the intention ( weather was to get rid of the child, or to help him to cure himself?).

After Ado return from his educational sojourn at the age of 17, he had changed a little, he can
communicate near normal with people though he speaks loudly, laughs in a very high pitch even in a silly matter. As regard his other personalities; he was able to accompany his father to the farm to tilled the soil, he can fetch water, he can perform other energy required activities, but he cannot be trusted for activities that requires intelligence like buying things, reading or writing.

Ado used to join some activities in his village that amuse his interest like cadets and volunteer town
security vigilant groups. he really likes parades, one day while I was passing I noticed him in a group of other cadet youth performing parade training, and they were surrounded by dozens of townsmen whom were mostly gazing at Ado’s performance and laughing at it, because he always do things contrary to what was commanded; when instructed to turn to the right, they all do it, except Ado who may turn to the left, or stay just to gazing at what others do and later turn to the right. End of story.

Had it not been for the society we are living in, Ado’s case and any other related ones are a very
manageable conditions, where it can be diagnosed early and through different mode of psycho
therapies to improve the person’s condition and even give him a chance to live a normal life and
contribute to the society. Usually people with such kind of conditions have some other remarkable
qualities, skills, intelligence, or ability to do some other things extra ordinarily well. History has proven to that (Winston Churchill, earnest Hemingway etc.)

While I was going through some articles of medical literature nowadays, I was able to remember Ado’s condition and relate it with some disorders that were already well known and can be treated for many decades in the developed world, where psychiatric education and mental health had a priority, but unfortunately in our part of the globe these are disorders we barely understand even among our ‘educated’ folks talk less of the general public. Conditions like Autism (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Bipolar Disease, Epilepsy, Dementia, Depression, Psychosis, and Parkinson’s disease among others. Surprisingly most of those conditions I mentioned above are disorders that can be easily identified and managed nowadays in the Western world, but in our part of the globe we mostly either generally ascribed those manageable neurological conditions to ‘Jinn’, superstitions, “asiri” , “maita” (witchcraft) or at worst gave up on trying to find cure for them, leaving the person(victim) living his life unfulfilled and marginalized in a society.
For instance, ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ) is a condition characterized by a child or an adult displaying certain abnormal characters like lack of concentration in his studies, temperament (“
saurin fushi”) , and low IQ (intelligent quotient). In the US or Britain this is a condition that may
required urgent medical intervention by a physician, but in our society who cares to recognized these ‘minor’ symptoms and even think of medical intervention. It’s no surprising our society is full of psychologically deficient persons. some are ironically running highly sensitive political and leadership roles, many of them are our drivers on the roads hence the high rate of daily accident on our roads, many more have penetrated in to all roots and fibers of our society that clearing the problem is near
impossible.

Some of readers may be surprised for my statement or even hold a grudge against my words, but sitting alone and thinking over it, one can conclude the effect of the unchecked mental wellbeing of our populace. I was not the first to make such a claim; Mrs. Fareeda Waziri, former Nigeria’s head of anti corruption agency EFCCC was once reported to have advised the government to checkmate the mental capacity of anybody wishing to run for any leadership role in the country. This is not surprising looking at the mega -mania attitudes of some individuals to accrued for themselves and few of their family members sum of wealth from the Nation’s coffers amount that neither them nor their fifth generation
descendant can spend!

Lastly, If you can carefully analyzed and make an impartial judgment over the attitudes displayed by the majority of the our drivers on the roads from those with personal cars to those with commercial
vehicles, what mental state can you say of a person with a car full of passengers, some even inside the rear boot, without a seat belt, and at the same time risk overtaking a lorry on a very dangerous slope corner in the middle of the night ? what mentality state can you say of a person driving at a high speed and at the same time answering or even making a phone call while the passengers whose life hang on his wheel are sitting calmly inside the car untouched by the driver’s reckless and dangerous action?

May Allah guide us, Ameen..